U.S. Pat. No. 4,001,742 entitled "Circuit Breaker Having Improved Operating Mechanism" describes a circuit breaker capable of interrupting several thousand amperes of circuit current at several hundred volts potential. As described therein, the operating mechanism is in the form of a pair of powerful operating springs that are restrained from separating the circuit breaker contacts by means of a latching system. Once the operating mechanism has responded to separate the contacts, the operating springs must be recharged to supply sufficient motive force to the movable contact arms that carry the contacts. With the arrangement described within the aforementioned U.S. Patent, the operating springs can only be charged when the circuit breaker contacts are in the OPEN condition. It would be advantageous to be able to immediately reset the circuit breaker operating mechanism to reclose the contacts without having to recharge the circuit breaker operating springs immediately after opening the circuit breaker contacts.
One purpose of the invention, accordingly, is to provide a circuit breaker operating mechanism that is capable of recharging the circuit breaker operating springs with the circuit breaker contacts in both their OPEN as well as CLOSED conditions.